Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods & EIRA

Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods & EIRA

Meg Stuart Biography

Meg Stuart (U.S.A.) is a choreographer and dancer living and working in Brussels and Berlin. In 1986 she received her BFA in dance at New York University and continued her training following classes in Release technique and Contact Improvisation at the dance laboratory Movement Research (New York). In the 1980s Stuart worked as a dancer with Nina Martin, Lisa Kraus, Federico Restrepo and Marcus Stern, and from 1986 to 1992 she was a member of the Randy Warshaw Dance Company, where she was also assistant to the choreographer. On the invitation of the Klapstuk festival in Leuven, she created her first evening-length piece Disfigure Study, which launched her choreographic career in Europe. Stuart founded her own company Damaged Goods in 1994 and made Brussels her artistic home. She collaborated with many artists, including Pierre Coulibeuf, Philipp Gehmacher, Ann Hamilton, Gary Hill, Benoît Lachambre, Jorge León and Hahn Rowe. Residencies in Schauspielhaus Zürich (2000–04) and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin (2005-09) led to collaborations with theatre directors Stefan Pucher, Christoph Marthaler and Frank Castorf. Since 2010 Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods initiated a new collaboration with the Münchner Kammerspiele where next year’s production will premiere at the end of April 2012. With Damaged Goods, Stuart has created more than twenty productions, ranging from solos to large-scale choreographies and including site-specific creations and installations. Over the years she has initiated and taken part in several improvisation projects. She curated the festival Intimate Strangers (Berlin 2006, Brussels 2008, Toulouse 2011 and Ghent 2011) with performances, concerts, installations and lectures by artists related to Damaged Goods. Her work has travelled a wide international theatre circuit and has also been presented at Documenta X (1997) in Kassel and at Manifesta7 (2008) in Bolzano. Stuart also teaches workshops in a variety of contexts. Meg Stuart received the Mobil Pegasus Award at the Sommertheaterfestival in Hamburg (1994) for No Longer Readymade; the Culture Award of the Catholic University of Leuven (2000); the German theatre prize Der Faust (2006) for her choreography of Replacement; the French Prize of Criticism (2008) for Blessed; a special prize for Maybe Forever at the Bitef Festival in Belgrade (2008); a Bessie Award in New York (2008) for her body of work; a Flemish Culture Award in the category performing arts (2008).

Francisco Camacho Biography

Francisco Camacho (Portugal) studied dance, theatre and voice in Portugal and continued his studies in New York at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. He danced with several choreographers, including Paula Massano, Meg Stuart, Alain Platel and Carlota Lagido. Since 1988 Francisco Camacho's own work has been presented in Europe, America and Africa. Apart from the solos and group pieces that he directed, he also created several performances in collaboration with artists active in dance and theatre. Within the context of exhibitions of artists like Pedro Cabrita Reis and Francis Bacon, he also developed site-specific projects. As an actor he participated in plays directed by Lúcia Sigalho and in short movies. He teaches regularly, in Portugal and abroad. The Portuguese press association Casa da Imprensa awarded his work with the prizes Bordalo 95 and 97. In 1994-1995 he received the prize ACARTE/Maria Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão. Francisco is the founder of EIRA, his own production house.